


Awake in Hut 8

by steadfastasthouart



Series: Watford without Watford [4]
Category: Fangirl - Rainbow Rowell, Simon Snow series - Gemma T. Leslie
Genre: Barracks, Beds, Definite fluff, M/M, SnowBaz, Watford, a little smut, also lots of touching, still no magic here, the pursuit of meaning in a crumbling world, the whole damn thing takes place in bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-11
Updated: 2015-04-11
Packaged: 2018-03-22 08:21:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3721870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steadfastasthouart/pseuds/steadfastasthouart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Simon thought they'd both been assigned to Hut 8, but if Baz had slept there the first two nights, he'd arrived and departed again during Simon's sleep.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Simon would think back on the seven subsequent nights for the rest of his life.</p><p>*** Watford and its residents belong to Rainbow Rowell, author of the book <em>Fangirl</em>, in which they first appeared. ***</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Third Night in Hut 8, Very Late

Simon awoke from a deep and apple-colored sleep to a rustling sound that seemed to come from directly below him.

“What is it?” he grumbled, words half-swallowed by the dream, and a hand clamped across his mouth. He vaulted to sitting in a squeal of ancient bed-springs, ready to fight.

“Hush, Snow,” Baz whispered. “It's me. I was trying to slide a note under your blasted pillow, but as you're such an enormous lummox, I had to shift you a bit.” He watched recognition appear, and when he was sure Simon wouldn't scream, he removed his hand.

“You're passing me _notes_ now, Baz?” Simon grinned sleepily. It was very dark in the barracks hut, but an edge of light lined the improbably sharp angles of Baz's cheekbone and brow.

“Just the one. Reconnaissance from my work today.”

Simon felt around for it and came up with a small, sealed bit of paper.

“It's awfully little. What if I hadn't seen it?”

“Randall Zwinge, Snow, I am doing all I bloody well can,” Baz whispered with some heat. “I can't be held accountable for what you don't see.”

From the cot nearest the door, tonight's Simon monitor, Professor Desai, shifted noisily in his sleep. 

“Pipe down,” Simon whispered back to Baz. “Desai's got ears like a bat.”

Instead, Baz lowered himself onto Simon's bed, quite easily, as if he didn't notice that Simon barely fit on his own, nor that the fussy little mattresses separated beneath them, nor yet that the springs shrieked so violently under the added weight that they seemed ready to snap. He reclined casually on an elbow and, Simon supposed, was looking down at him, but from this angle, there wasn't enough light to see.

“Well, in case you forget to read it, they've sent messages to the Home Council. There's talk of your removal.”

“What does that mean?” Simon demanded, if one _can_ demand at a sound level that's barely above mouthing the words, and while trying not to gasp at the physical proximity of the corporeal embodiment of one's desires—at Baz Pitch, in his _bed_.

“They see you as a security risk— _for yourself_ , they'll say; and _for all of us_ , they'll think.” 

“Where would I go?”

“No definite plans, but the States emerged as a possibility.”

Simon deflated. “Why tell me now?”

“We're traversing uncharted territory, Snow. I'm going to err on the side of telling you too much rather than too little.”

“And how come you get to know so much?”

“Many reasons.” Baz let his fingers rap lightly against Simon's chest. “First, I'm a Pitch, and that name opens doors. Second, I'm a promising magician, quite near the top of the best class Watford's entertained in decades. And third, I have the right relationship with you. Our mutual dislike is common knowledge, but the Roommate's Anathema means I'd never harm you. All of which add up to make me generally welcome in the council-room. Poor Bunce gnashes her teeth every time I enter.”

Simon grinned, imagining it. “Why do they need you if they've got her?”

“Haven't you been listening, Snow?” Baz flicked a finger against Simon's chin. “They can't trust her; she's too firmly staked in at Camp Simon.”

Simon pressed him for a few more details, but concentrating on anything Baz said—even about him—was increasingly difficult as those slim fingers continued to subtly abuse his body. Finally, when Baz caught tight hold of Simon's earlobe, he cut Baz off.

“You are _in my bed_ , Baz.”

His earlobe burned like an ember between Baz's fingertips.

Baz's touch lightened. “Shall I leave?” he offered coolly.

“No, you git, obviously that's not—“ Simon wanted to grab his hand and crimp it back in place.

“Perhaps, then,” Baz said, dipping a delicate fingertip into the base of the ear and tracing one long interior ridge, “it behooves you to clarify.”

Simon sputtered a bit. He wasn't sure what exactly he'd meant to say—if he _had_ found the right words, they'd have been depthlessly profane and beneath Baz's notice, but the tosh he was spewing now was really no better. 

Taking pity, Baz cut him off. “If I may make so bold as to conjecture: You perhaps meant to intimate that a bed should house more personal forms of congress.”

“Crowley, Baz, will you just fucking—“ Baz's hand clamped his blustering mouth shut, but Simon, burning to touch any part of him, forced his tongue through to lick Baz's palm, and then there were fingers in his mouth, and Baz making an unusual sound—like panting—in his ear, and then, almost motionless in fear of the creaky bed, heads nestled on Simon's pillow, they were kissing again, and all was to rights.

By the time Simon pulled away for a shaky breath, he'd forgiven everything.

“Are you always going to string me along like this?”

“Probably.”

 


	2. Fourth Night in Hut 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Simon asks a question he doesn't want Baz to answer.

“Baz, remember what you called me the other day? In the orchard?”

“I'm sure I called you a great many things, few complimentary.”

“You called me _pure_ and _virginal_.”

Baz paused, lips near Simon's ear. “If the shoe fits.”

Ignoring, for the moment, the question of how Baz knew Simon's sexual history, he continued: “But there's a difference between 'virginal' and 'virgin.' It's not just about sex.”

“Ah. Less a state of body, you mean to say, than a state of mind?"

The tone was mocking, but Simon responded seriously.

“I guess. I mean, I'm not embarrassed that I haven't had sex. I just didn't want to when the opportunity seemed like it was presenting itself.”

“With girls?”

“With people who weren't...” He stopped. Baz's hand was inside his shirt now, and it was hard for him to say anything that wasn't _Baz._ “...exciting. To me.”

“Hm.” He could hear Baz's smirk, and he didn't care. He didn't care if Baz knew that his narrow person was the framework of Simon's fantasies, that his sneers made Simon tremble with barely-restrained longing. Simon couldn't say if that longing was for eternities of Baz's scorn and condescension or for the possibility that his body would yield, even a fraction, when Simon touched him.

“What about you, Baz?” The question made his gut lurch. He didn't really want to know.

“What _about_ me?”

“Have you?”

“Snow,” he breathed, exasperated. “I am a _gentleman_.”

A gentleman.

Baz wasn't just a gentleman: he was the gentleman you'd pick out from across a crowded ballroom; a gentleman who wore tailored suits like normal people wore band t-shirts, and whose list of accomplishments certainly included music, dance, drawing, horseback riding, and likely a slew of others he was too refined to reveal; a gentleman who had now returned to sucking and biting—with the electrifying precision of a person for whom bites were a life-and-death matter—Simon's lower lip.

Simon's organs were all muddled; his brain had switched off except for one many-years-old memory: a calling card, printed in chestnut ink on cream, that read _Tyrannus Basilton Pitch_.

It was unimaginably exciting.


	3. Fifth Night in Hut 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baz gets off on being withholding.

Simon wasn't sure if he could expect Baz to wake him up that night. 

Classes had resumed the day before, if you could use the word _resumed_ when really, they'd completely transformed. Professor McCormick had insisted that a “return to fundamentals” would make valuable use of everyone's time, so the professors had extracted and built courses around all the non-magical elements of their curricula.

Thus, the students found themselves in seminars on History of World Magicks, Romantic Poetry, Chemistry, and Maths, among others, and in practical studies of such subjects as Dexterity, Dodging, and Swordsmanship.

Simon had been assigned to the latter that afternoon. He felt terrible—depressed and physically bereft in a way he couldn't explain—as he waited on one of the benches that surrounded the instruction area. He had been startled to see Baz stride over and join him.

“I didn't know you even _had_ classes anymore,” he muttered, trying not to look thrilled and terrified at being with Baz in public again now that they were—whatever _this_ was.

“One must maintain appearances,” Baz said, shrugging.

“And what the profs were thinking— _swordsmanship_? I'm not exactly complaining, as I could do with a bit more facility with the old thing, but it's a dead art. Why not fisticuffs? Muskets?”

Baz raised an eyebrow, as if about to respond, but then Coach Mac called him in. “Pitch, come down and help me demonstrate some basic attacks and parries.”

With an ease that had to have come from years of practice, Baz caught the hilt of the short sword that the coach tossed him; then, he fought like he had danced—with absolute control and awareness of each bit of air that he and his partner displaced. Simon was gobsmacked. How many times had Baz watched him charge blindly forward waving his Sword of Mages like a child with a wooden weapon?

Simon wanted to pummel Baz.

He wanted to fucking worship him.

A moment later, Baz rejoined him on the bench, slightly out of breath and smelling very much of Baz.

“You were saying something?”

“All these years, Baz, and you never said... All this time, have you just been watching me and laughing?”

Baz rolled his eyes away. “Something like that.”

“Tosser.” Simon tried to shrug it off, watched Coach talk Dev and Osiris through a few steps—forward, back, thrust, parry—but then he glared at Baz again. Crowley, it had been so long. “It's all I can do not to bash your head in right now.”

“Why restrain yourself, my lord of virtue?” Baz drawled, and that was fucking that, Simon was not some superhuman; he threw himself at Baz's neck. They fell to the ground in a heap of elbows and knuckles, Simon punching wildly and Baz dodging the really dangerous blows but letting a few land while striking back just enough to make it look like a fair fight. When Simon split Baz's lip, Baz jerked his head away so fast that the blood spurted across the grass and Simon felt a sudden sinking remorse: Baz hadn't let Simon's fist reach his teeth, hadn't risked the contact—not now, not ever—and moreover, had obviously (to Simon, at least, who now knew he'd never have Baz's raw power) thrown the whole fight, which meant that either he _liked_ having Simon pulp him, or he thought Simon in some way _needed_ this, neither of which made Simon feel very great.

Then Coach yanked them apart and made them shake hands, which Simon could barely do because he just wanted to hide his head forever, and then Professor Chilblains escorted him, with grave decorum, back to Hut 8.

* * *

So, he wasn't really expecting Baz, which meant that he hovered in hours of excruciating half-sleep before the bed creaked with Baz's weight and Simon's chest expanded to full capacity again.

Baz stretched out beside him.

“You have an unhealthy relationship with your desires, Snow.”

 _You're telling me_ , Simon thought, but he wasn't sure what to say other than that he was glad—so glad, overjoyed, bursting—that Baz hadn't jumped ship. Instead, he complained.

“Haven't we got past the formality, Baz? Won't 'Simon' do now?”

Dusting his fingertips across the purple and swollen bruise that had been Simon's left cheekbone, Baz said, “I should think not. It appears we get on worse than ever—which is quite useful to me, by the way, so well met. Now... do you wish to beg tonight, Snow, or shall we just set to it?”

“ _Tyrannus_ ,” Simon growled, dragging Baz atop him.  


	4. Sixth Night in Hut 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "If you wanted constant sunshine, you wouldn't have signed on.”

Baz's lips grazed his forehead and Simon rolled over to make room.

It had been an abominable day—from the moment Simon had woken, he'd felt like his head was being crushed between concrete walls, like his skull was a walnut's shell cracking. Classes hadn't helped. Penelope didn't understand why he kept mixing up his Latin and French conjugations in their Root Languages Review course, and attributed it to the Baz situation—about which she then made much amused innuendo to Agatha—and Simon, who'd been cradling his nights with Baz like a pearl within him, had had a very difficult time not shouting at her to shut it already. Then, he'd taken a bad loss to Osiris in Swordsmanship and his classmates had clapped him sympathetically on the back after, which was just about more than he could bear. And he was always, always under watch, and when the pressure in his head made him wince and shudder, the professors just eyed him with greater suspicion.

“About time,” he whispered to Baz.

“Can't join you tonight, I'm afraid.”

“What?” Simon asked, crushed. “It's not as though Benedict will catch us at it." He could hear the sleeping professor murmuring—in what he couldn't help but note were rather sultry tones—from the depths of a dream.

“Ah,” Baz asked with loaded emphasis, teasing Simon. “Is the strapping Professor _Benedict_ on Simon detail tonight? Perhaps I'd better investigate how soundly _he's_ sleeping.”

Simon blushed in the dark, startled at the raging jealousy—and at the equally raging sexual response—that Baz's joke triggered. He'd never let himself envision Baz with anyone else, but now that he was, the image was in equal parts enthralling and repugnant. “I didn't mean that you...”

“I'm sure you _didn't_ , my purest snow of winter.” If Baz crammed any more sarcasm into his tone, it would burst at the seams. “My tender first bloom of spring. But set your heart at rest—I am utterly uninterested in the doings of the professor, but I have other business tonight.”

Simon heard the urgency in “other business,” and remembered, guiltily. _Of course, I've been so selfish._

“You haven't eaten since you started... joining me.” He reached to caress Baz's cheek, but Baz shifted away.

“Incisively deduced, crocus.”

The comments were starting to sting. “You are really shitty to me sometimes.”

“I am really _hungry_ sometimes,” Baz snarled. “But then, if you wanted constant sunshine, you wouldn't have signed on, would you?”

 _Of course I don't want sunshine_ , Simon thought, aching at having Baz so close and so totally out of reach. _I want desperation and consuming, agonizing desire and someone who's almost always stronger than me. But, Crowley, is too much to wish you didn't despise me?_

Instead, he said, struggling for composure, “I didn't realize I'd _signed on_ for anything.”

“Didn't you?” Baz chuckled, and the edge was still there, but so was real surprise. “Then let this serve as official notice.”

Suddenly close, Baz's tongue touched a precise and delicate point inside Simon's ear. “I heard you yesterday,” he whispered hoarsely. “I know exactly what you want from me.”

 _Isaac fucking Fawkes,_ Simon thought, quivering. _I truly have no secrets left._ The powerlessness churned something rich and torrid inside of him. His heart was a mash of want, and Baz was already leaving.

“Baz?” _Wait. Take me with you. Don't let go. Fuck me. Fill me. Sob on me. Hold me, hold me, hold me._

“Yes, sunshine?” he drawled, his impatience and hunger obvious.

“I'll miss you tonight.”

* * *

Hours later, he woke from a dream of that one time with Baz and the buck, and with Baz's bloody visage flooding his mind—and _how_ that was sexy, there was no way he could fully explain, even to himself, except that if he could ever make Baz look so completely unfettered and content (although ideally without any blood-drinking involved) Simon would probably die immediately from an extremity of sexual fulfillment—he stumbled out of the squeaking bed and crept through the dark room in pursuit.

Why hadn't he thought to figure out in the light which bed was Baz's? Too self-absorbed, as usual, he supposed, cursing himself quietly as he stubbed his toe on someone's bedframe. What he'd give for a working wand—but if wands still worked, he'd be back in his bedroom at Watford, and so would Baz, and not another soul...

Soft creaks and snores filled the hut, but Simon was sure he'd recognize the sound of Baz sleeping off a meal. After a moment's listening, he located it at the far end of the room—a deep, rumbling breath, steady and even. Cautiously, he made his way over and nudged himself under Baz's covers.

The bed was tiny, and sleeping Baz immobile as a tomb, so Simon had to halfway sprawl across him, which felt much better than Simon had thought it might, even with a metal bar jabbing him in the right hip. In sleep, the tension was gone, Baz splayed loose and almost soft of limb as the cool breath circulated through him.

This, Simon thought, was when could touch Baz forever. Slowly, relishing the freedom, he ran his fingers along Baz's peaceful face, his slim neck, across the muscles of his chest, down his arm—and _oh_. _That_ was where Baz's right hand rested while he slept.

Simon's desire was almost physically painful. He wanted all of Baz, wanted to feel him in a way that others hadn't—or maybe they had, but at least it would mean something else when it came from him, _Simon_ , who had been too close and too far for as long as they'd known each other. And now, here they were together under a rough blanket, and Baz, usually so controlled and controlling, was out cold with his hand on his own hard cock, and what was this if not a sign...?

The morally upright voice in his head (which always sounded suspiciously like Penelope) lambasted him: _What it_ is _is non-consensual._

And of course that was the truth, and, heart pounding with shame and lust, Simon went no further, instead slogging back to his own messy bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to knightinbrightfeathers for ["Penelope Bunce Cares About Consensual Sex and So Should You,"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3451910/chapters/7571162) because, of _course_ she does. And so should we all.


	5. Seventh Night in Hut 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bad news.

Baz laughed at him. (Silently, of course, in that sleeping room.)

“I appreciate your compunctions, Snow, but henceforth, I grant you leave to pleasure my sleeping form at your own discretion.” Simon was stroking Baz's smooth temple, which he just could not get enough of, so he felt the eyebrow lift “—that is, if you dare to actually _touch_ me, my trembling lily.”

Simon had had enough.

“Stuff it, Baz. I'm _not_ virginal. I am not pure and unblemished. I get to be smutty and perverse and grimy too.”

“Too? As in, like me?” Baz sounded amused at the ridiculousness of the notion.

In response, Simon slid his hand down Baz's front. He passed the surprisingly giving flesh of the midsection, ran his thumb with torturous languor down the protruding length of a hard hip-bone—near the terminus of which he was abashedly thrilled to hear Baz suck in his breath—and slipped his way into Baz's pyjama trousers.

“Sure,” Simon said. “Like you.”

Someday, he thought, he would tell Baz about those hunting dreams, and about how he used to watch Baz's uninhibited depths of repose while relieving his own pent-up desire. For now, though, there was more power in showing.

“Phila _del_ phia,” Baz swore as Simon's sure fingers grasped him.

* * *

After, when the room was beginning to touch the outer reaches of grey—the point at which Baz usually (and Simon rejoiced anew that they even _had_ a “usually”) slid across the room to his own bed—Baz wrapped his arms around Simon and held him close, with a protective vehemence that made Simon want to cry.

Baz's voice sounded a little thick. “Surely you've noticed that the Humdrum's getting stronger. The council received more than twenty reports today, which is twice yesterday and ten times that of two days ago.”

“Yeah.” Simon couldn't deny it, although he'd only pieced it together today for himself. The intolerable headache had persisted, and he'd begun to realize that others, too, felt something abhorrent in these sunny spring days. Everyone had been tense, irritable, physically uncomfortable, and even though he had no way to remedy the situation, he felt that it was very much his own fault.

“What does this mean, Baz? What are they planning?”

Baz's lip twitched against Simon's cheek. “I'm sure they wouldn't tell _a student_ anything so consequential. Bunce and I have been exiled from the meetings.”

“But you know,” Simon guessed, reading Baz's tone.

“Godwin's ghost, they put me in charge of establishing our network connectivity, even the phone lines. Of course I know.” Sensing Simon's ethical objections, he added, “Desperate times, Snow. You want to live like me, so how does the grime suit you?" Simon shook his head. It was just like Baz to twist their earlier talk into a defense of espionage. Maybe for Baz, political intrigue and sex weren't so different, and anyway, he couldn't resist an opportunity to needle Simon, even when he had news to impart.

"What are they planning?" Simon repeated, this time with more bite.

Baz took a deep breath. "They're going to place you under the care of the Magicians' Senate.”

Simon exhaled. “MS Europe?” The regional senate was in Prague this decade—not convenient, but at least only a short flight.

“No, _the_ Senate. In Melbourne.”

“Oh.” The other fucking side of the world.

Simon didn't know what to say. He couldn't leave Watford, couldn't leave _this_ , but he could see the harm his presence was doing everyone. The Humdrum wanted _him_ most of all, so if he left, so would it. He would have to go. He could feel himself cracking in two. “Oh,” he repeated. “Oh, shit.”

Baz didn't sneer. Instead, his hands gripped Simon, exploring him, soothing him, catching him, as Simon tried to flee his tears. 


	6. Eighth Night in Hut 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh, [where is happiness?](http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/sonnet-ballad)

“Not tomorrow, nor the next,” Baz whispered. “Two more nights; then the third day, they'll take you.”

He kissed Simon hard and long, prying out room for himself, bolstering him. “But tonight, _I_ take.”

Despite his words, Baz wasn't greedy or selfish—at least, not tonight. He gave and gave, but Simon was in such agony that he could barely respond.

Okay, that was a lie; he responded plenty. But even in the very best of it, part of him felt a miserable ache like a mantra at the core of his being: _You'll never be happy again._

And he felt even worse when he saw that Baz, too, was hurting from the Humdrum's presence—he was moving slower, with more intention and less of the graceful disregard that tended to brand a Pitch. _It's my fault_ , he thought, insides wrung like a soggy rag, _and not only can't I protect him; I can't even show how good this is, how good he is, how good I want to be for him._

_At least I can leave. At least then the Humdrum will have to leave them to chase me._

For the first time, he fell asleep in Baz's arms. Two more nights, then.


	7. Ninth Night in Hut 8, and Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A dream; a souvenir; a brook; a circle of sky.

His dreams were overlaid with thick swirls, like oil-slicks on a rain-puddle, of purple and green and grey. _Baz colors_ , he thought in his sleep, but the pit of his stomach ached like iron and he shied away from every new image that broke across the screen of his mind.

He woke in the dark, gulping and afraid, and what a relief it was to find a body cuddled against him and to wrap his arms tight around it as he came to terms with who he was, and where.

Trying to calm his breathing, he let his nose drift forward into Baz's soft hair... But it felt different. It was grassy and coarse and tickled him, and the smell wasn't right, and Simon felt, then, the smallness of the fingers that gripped his embracing arms, and the terror swelled to consume him.

“ _You_ ,” he breathed. If he screamed, if he flailed, someone would get hurt. Instead, he kept his arms around the Insidious Humdrum; bootless though he knew it was, clutching the Humdrum gave him the illusion of power, as if he could constrict it out of being.

“Me,” the Humdrum agreed, speaking at a very normal volume.

“I thought you were at Watford.”

“I was.”

“Have you left it for good?” The hope in his own voice surprised him.

“I haven't left it at all.” He hated the Humdrum's voice—so clean, so sweet, so pure; it was everything Baz—the new Baz, his _lover_ —had thrown in his face, everything he'd tried to reject, but it was here and undeniable. The Humdrum was like a trick mirror, showing him his own truth as he least wanted to see it. 

“But you're _here_.”

Touching the Humdrum was like hugging a meat-grinder. Simon could swear he felt gears grind and teeth gnash through the flimsy sheath of skin.

“Yes, I am here, Simon. But I am also there. I am much more than you, Simon; I can be in so many places.” The voice was so clear, so ominous.

“You know, don't you?”

“That you are planning to leave? That you suspect that removing yourself will allow life to return to normal for those you care about? Simon, _I_ will not leave just because you do. The same consuming desire that created me also ensured that there could never _be_ a normal without you. You wanted everything.”

“I don't understand. If I made you, why can't I destroy you?” He was squeezing now, feeling the mechanical innards bend and snap like tin. “Why don't we cancel each other out?”

“Because, once each was satisfied, you _forgot_ the wants that you had fledged.” As Simon crushed the Humdrum's torso flat, the voice seemed to come less from the body in his arms than from within his own mind. “But want begets want, Simon, and I do not forget. I contain multitudes of your multitudes. I will always find you.”

The crumpled body in his bed vanished and Simon was hugging himself, shaking with fear and anger and sorrow. He expected the pain in his head to grow, the weight of the Humdrum's presence to oppress him more greatly now, like it had in the ballroom, but the opposite happened—his head cleared a little, and his limbs lightened, and he felt newly capable of thought.

Maybe, he dared to surmise, that hadn't been quite as real as it seemed. Maybe it was a Humdrum-induced nightmare.

Then he saw something on his pillow, small and round, innocuous in any other circumstance: a little red ball.

The ball had been his once, long ago, but the last time he'd seen it was in the restless hands of the Humdrum. Gagging, he grabbed it and tried to squash the ball like he'd squashed the mechanical interloper in his bed. The rubber wouldn't give.

What time was it? Simon peeked at his mobile. Well past midnight. Would Baz have come in yet? Or was this a hunting night? Could Baz be in his own bed? Taking a few breaths to slow his pounding heart, Simon want to investigate. As he'd expected, the bed was neat and empty.

Simon needed to find him. He needed help. He needed Baz.

Had Chilblains been his watcher, he could probably have snuck right out the door, but Desai was on duty tonight; practical, stern, and attentive, he startled awake at even the quietest footfalls near his bed.

Simon paused to wonder how Baz got in and out so easily, then remembered his instantaneous and noiseless appearance in the orchard and shook his head. Baz had indomitable magic sewn into him. Simon didn't.

He thought of Professor Eccleston's first-years instinctively seeking out matches and candles in the dark while everyone with more experience reached for their wands. What was the gandry way out of a guarded building?

He had seen Pen and Agatha covering broken windows in the huts at move-in. There must be at least a few broken in Hut 8.

He crept down to the wall farthest from the door. Sure enough, two small panes near the bottom were missing, tacked over with plastic, which pulled away easily in Simon's hands. The divider between them was more stubborn, but his pocketknife sunk deep in the rotten wood and once he'd weakened the ends, he wrenched the piece out whole and pushed himself out into the night.

* * *

He found Baz right where he'd expected, in a small clearing deep in the woods outside of campus, scrubbing his face and hands in the brook. When he looked up at Simon's approach, his eyes shone in the dark.

“Good meal?” Simon gasped, winded from his run, as he stepped into the circle of starlight.

“I've had better,” Baz said with reflexive nonchalance, but he rose as if concerned, and demanded, “Why are you out, Snow?” Looking him over, he added, “And mightn't you have dressed first?”

Simon glanced down, chagrined to observe that he was clothed only in his shorts and undershirt. He was sweating hot torrents in the cold night air. His bare feet stung from twigs and rocks.

“I couldn't wait...” he panted. “I had to... the Humdrum... it was _with_ me, in _bed_ with me... I … I _held_ it, Baz.”

Baz strode across the creek. Inches away, he stared at Simon's streaming face.

“Did it harm you, Snow? Did it threaten you?” His face was ash-pale in the faint light, his eyes impenetrable.

“No,” Simon stammered. “I mean, I'm not hurt. I tried to crush it, to squeeze it to death, but it disappeared. It left this.”

Baz lifted the little rubber ball with his fingertips, like a jeweler might examine an enormous gem. “Why?” he asked.

“He's showing that he's getting stronger. He's not limited by where I go; he can be with me across the world and in Watford and with all of you at the same time. I was ready to bolt for Melbourne to spare all of you, but it won't help a whit, and then I'll be alone and so... so will Watford. Alone from me. I know it sounds puffed-up, but Watford needs me here. You can't let them send me away, Baz.”

“ _I_ can't? I believe we've established that the council no longer value my good opinion.”

“I don't need your _words_ ,” Simon glowered, spent and frightened and in no mood for Baz's games. “I need you to fucking hide me.”

“All right.”

“All right?” Simon was taken aback.

“All right. I will _fucking hide_ you.” He mulled it over a bit more, making the ball appear and vanish in his hand—a technique they'd learned in Deception, second year. “And I will hide you well.”

Simon reached for him then, overcome with gratitude and need and the urge to belong, for at least one moment, to someone else on this earth. But Baz wouldn't hold him.

Instead, quickly, gently, Baz flipped him off his feet so that he lay on the mossy bank of the brook. Baz knelt like a healer at his side and let his supple hands coast across Simon's skin. Simon felt their marbled power gird him, like armor, from his damaged feet to pounding heart; he felt Baz fortify him and he remembered Baz saying they needed him strong. Or confident? Or brave? Or _what_ it was didn't matter, because _this was it_ : Baz gave him what he needed.

Finally, after those dispassionate and impassioned hands had touched him in every part, strengthened every molecular bond within him with the icy clarity of love, and after Simon had forgotten where he was, who he was—forgotten everything but this moment, suspended in a cool grey void of space and time that felt very much like magic—he felt Baz's head fall heavy upon his chest.

“I claim you in every way I have a right to claim you.” It was like an incantation, low and deep, for them and for their own tiny infinity of far-flung stars. “We need to leave now.”  
  



End file.
